System and Method for Building Intelligent and Distributed L2 - L7 Unified Threat Management Infrastructure for IPv4 and IPv6 Environments

Abstract

A security gateway appliance is configured to evaluate network traffic according to security rules that classify traffic flows according to specifically identified application programs responsible for producing and / or consuming the network traffic and to enforce policies in accordance with network traffic classifications. The appliance includes an on-box anti-virus / anti-malware engine, on-box data loss prevention engine and on-box authentication engine. One or more of these engines is informed by an on-box dynamic real tie rating system that allows for determined levels of scrutiny to be paid to the network traffic. Security gateways of this type can be clustered together to provide a set of resources for one or more networks, and in some instances as the backbone of a cloud-based service.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]The present invention relates to methods and systems which integrate firewall and unified threat management (UTM) infrastructures with application proxy technology to provide a unified solution for IPv4 and IPv6 environments.BACKGROUND[0002]Many application programs make use of the Internet Protocol (IP) version 4 (IPv.4) and IP version 6 (1Pv.6) when being accessed across local and wide area networks as well as across the Internet. While the use of IP has advantages, its widespread use exposes enterprise and other networks to certain risks. Similar threats are faced with traffic running over other protocols (e.g., file transfer protocol (FTP), simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP), etc.), and so companies must be vigilant in regulating traffic passing into and out of their networks, irrespective of origin and with due attention paid to the content, or payload, of data packets in addition to packet header information.[0003]Traditionally, firewalls have bee...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0016]The security gateway may be further configured to provide real-time ratings and protection against undesired web content for a network associated with the security gateway, to evaluate the network traffic for potential data loss from a network associated with the security gateway, and to provide application filtering and controls while enforcing quality of service. All of these features may be included “on-box”, within a single appliance configured to scan inbound traffic for a network associated with the security gateway for viruses and malware engine, and to scan outbound traffic from the network for data leaks, without diverting the traffic off of the appliance. Any initial classifications may be updated by consuming additional data bytes of the traffic until a definitive application type is identified. In this way, an L2-L4 firewall engine may be updated dynamically, to optimize processing of future traffic.

Problems solved by technology

While the use of IP has advantages, its widespread use exposes enterprise and other networks to certain risks.

These packet filters generally were not able to take action according to whether individual packets were part of existing traffic flows.

That is, packet filters did not maintain any information concerning connection state and instead operated only on information contained within the individual packets themselves.

A slightly more intelligent firewall may be able to identify traffic at higher OSI layers, but cannot associate, for example, a specific user with an application.

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